DesktopHippie:At least it looks like some people were safe even right in the path of this thing.

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Gotta get up for work in a few hours. Calling it a night. Stay safe and be well, Oklahoma farkers.

That reminds me. All of you youngins, I know you love your flip flops and sandals, but for gods sake, when you go to a storm shelter, wear some real shoes, because you don't want to be walking around in that mess wearing stupid flip flops.

One of my best friends in the world is an ER doc at Integris Southwest Medical Center in OKC, and a Farker. Just talked to him this morning, he said he thought this storm was not going to be that bad. I'm guessing he's up to his arse in alligators right now. Can't thing of anyone I'd rather have around when the shiat hits the fan, though. Think a good thought for him and his colleagues.

PacificaFitz:ancker: How about you have some empathy for those affected instead of using this tragedy as a soapbox for your atheism.

What is wrong with you people? The victims have enough to deal with, they don't need you trying to rip away the only sense of comfort they have right now.

It's hard for us non believers to understand why a victim of this type of horrific event would still have faith in an all powerful entity that by their own beliefs caused this.

And I'm not saying you should. But that belief is what's comforting these people right now. Why don't you respect their beliefs and let them be for the night?

If my world was just turned upside down, literally, the last thing I'd want to have happen is people running up to me to point out that what was probably a very large part of my life and upbringing was a sham, and I should feel stupid for ever having believed in it.

Here's the KFOR feed: http://kfor.com/on-air/live-streaming/ I have to say that their coverage has been exemplary for the last several hours. Professional, informative, respectful, and careful to qualify what they know vs. what they've heard in rumors. In other words, the anti-CNN. One of their reporters appears to have personally helped dig out the bodies of four of the victims, and only went on air after the recovery was done.

To whoever was saying we should all have aboveground shelters... those cost from 8 to 10 grand. We could buy a new car for that kind of money. The only reason we are doing it is because we went through the April 27th tornadoes, and I'm not doing that shiat ever again. Most people can't afford that kind of money. Right now, WE can't afford that kind of money.

AndreMA:ArtosRC: Uchiha_Cycliste: Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards? Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

It really depends on the tornado and the location of the debris. Yes and no. What you can often expect are the spinning winds that keep debris aloft. Does some debris get sucked upwards? Definitely. Is it like a vacuum? Eh....

My understanding is that in the center of a tornado pressures are quite low. This accounts for much of the destruction, particularly with smaller ones: buildings explode from air pressure within. That's why some folks recommend opening windows before heading to shelter.

This is incorrect. They've done some pretty specific pressure readings inside a few EF4's and found there is a very negligible variance in pressure. Opening your windows has no significant determination as to the type of destruction caused, and typically if you have an area that wind can more easily enter into the house it will lead to the roof being ripped off.

Just got in for the night, was out of the news loop for the majority of the day. Had colleagues at Norman who went from scientifically interested to absolutely devastated in under 15 minutes. At least two of them had houses that were spared by only a half-mile, but many of their neighbors weren't as lucky.

Went back and got a screen of the hook echo on radar and storm velocity. Incredible.

Yes, seriously. QUIT HITTING THE GODDAMN TORNADO BUTTON. This is getting not only a bit redonkulous but a whole lot of sad and the very sort of thing we don't like to see. :(

Just friggin' stop it with the metaphysical tornado button. :P

(And I know it's already been mentioned, but people laugh when schools and businesses in Dixie Alley and Hoosier Alley have Tornado Days and Early Pretty-Damn-Severe Tornado Watch Dismissals (yeah, pretty much anytime a PDS tornado watch gets issued here there's a general early dismissal plan in a lot of cities here)...well, this is why. :( I'm not sure it would have helped much, but it's the sort of thing that the early dismissals are meant to prevent in theory. And yes, this is actually somewhat of a new thing around here, but especially after some outbreaks in the 90s and the Mega Outbreak in 2011 it's something that is taken fairly seriously.)

And in addition to battery and "Freeplay" crank-dynamo radios...if you have an interest in helping to get better early warning and help with coordinating rescue, I encourage folks to get their ham radio licenses and consider getting training to become a Skywarn storm spotter. (You don't even need Morse anymore to get a ham radio license--it helps in multistate communication, yes, but most of the Skywarn nets and emergency nets tend to be on VHF repeaters--and you can actually get spotter training online if there isn't an NWS spotter course nearby. Also, ham radio tends to work well when the cell towers are out.)

/really hopes for the AR/OK/MO folks that the 11-dimensional kid quits hitting the tornado button//godfarkingdamnit, I thought we were generally past the days when tornadoes racked up huge death counts in the US :(

Uchiha_Cycliste:Thanks! Do you know what it is like way above the tornado?Does that suction dissipate above the clouds, or create a huge upwards force for miles upwards? would a plane flying at 40,000 feet, 10,000 ft above the top of the clouds be safe?

The huricane hunters can't even fly in these storms. There have been some flights near big storms with NASA jets but they don't get very close and they have broken planes. A storm like this would be causing turbulence up to 65,000 feet or more. The tops of these have messed with weather balloons at 85,000 ft and they kick enough air into space that detectors on the ISS and shuttle can detect it.

mr lawson:Uchiha_Cycliste: Thanks you guys for answering my sucky question. It was the first time I'd ever questioned the tornado's vortex and not just taken it's properties for granted.

it does indeed suck upward.It is a VERY low pressure center.The out gassing is near the top of the supercell.That is why you have items found hundred of miles away.some of the lighter stuff gets sucked up tens of thousands of feet into the air.

Hm, here's a graphic to look at for those of you who are unfamiliar with how tornadoes work. The systems that create tornadoes are generally more complicated than this. Looking for more. Maybe some of you confirmed tornado nerds have something better handy.

No, I know it will go higher, but you have to see it to understand what I'm saying.

/two people I know (separate houses) have been wiped out, like to the foundation//a couple of relatives have not been accounted for and we are waiting to hear back///it literally looks like the place was bombed

artemusprine:OK, I get it. People who don't believe in God think prayer is a waste of time. It is utterly stupid to hope that people are found alive and well, are reunited with loved ones, and taken care of because hoping changes nothing according to a purely rational worldview. And why be thankful that you barely survived a massive calamity if there is no God to thank (and if even if there were you can't know that you aren't on his to-do list for the next tornado)? In the absence of compelling evidence for or against God, a willingness to believe has to be rooted in optimism. I'll take that optimism over "don't waste your time praying" and "don't embarrass us both by thanking your made-up God" any day.

I'm a Christian but I see their point in thinking it's stupid when someone is saying thank god they're alive while just a few blocks a way, a bunch of children drowned in a bathroom destroyed by a tornado.

From the article....First responders told KFOR-TV's Lance West they don't believe there are anymore survivors in the Plaza Towers Elementary school.

So far the bodies of seven children have been recovered.

Crews said they believe 20 to 30 more children may be inside but again, do not believe there are anymore survivors.

Let that sink in for a minute. I harp on our school system here in Northern Va for hitting the goddamn panic button. No more. Never. Ever.I can't even find the right words right now.I yelled at my daughter earlier for something rather innocuous. We're heading downstairs for some ice cream.

Bunny Deville:The thing that makes me so sad right now is that if we know, in Huntsville, that there is a strong likelihood of tornadoes, they cancel school well before the storms get here. Not that it probably would have mattered in this case, I understand that...

I was talking to my mom earlier and she asked "Why didn't they close the schools today?"/Although yea probably wouldn't have mattered./So sad.

Mitrovarr:optikeye:It's actually true. Here in Alabama they where useless for the Tuscaloosa Tornado outbreak.All money to the red-cross goes into their 'general fund' very little of that actually reaches people in need.Better to go on a website and donate to the local chapter of the Salvation Army in OKC---they target the area; and a very streamlined overhead cost.

While I'm not sure about this specific case, worrying about executive salaries or 'general funds' is not always a good idea with charities. If you want a huge, multinational charitable organization to survive and function, you need career work from educated professionals. It's not at all unreasonable that some of them, particularly highly educated or very experienced ones, might have six figure salaries. As far as 'general funds' go, the Red Cross does that because well known disasters tend to get carpet-bombed with way more aid than they can use while lesser ones are completely ignored; a general fund helps spread some of that out.

I am going to echo these sentiments, both in my experiences after the Alabama tornadoes (they actually tried to impede other groups from doing relief work when they showed up to slap notices on rubble), and after a major fire at my apartment complex last week that displaced 130 people. They carted off the displaced to a shelter and gave them a comfort kit, but that was it - and it took me raising some hell for them to even be willing to work with me to connect local nonprofits to the victims. They actually REFUSED my assistance in organizing additional aid. It's not like I'm just some random schmoe off the street, either, I'm a professor who runs a nonprofit center at the local university and I've got excellent contacts in the local nonprofit community.

The Red Cross is not worth your money. Some of the best relief work I saw done after the tornadoes was done by C.A.R.E. out of Intercourse, PA. It's part of the Mennonite Disaster Service.

Popcorn Johnny:star_topology: People who risk their lives for animals are a special group. That's the second one today they've interviewed.

Should they really be searching for animals right now where there are a lot of people still unaccounted for and not enough rescue personnel to get to them all? Everybody in the area should be looking for people, not a farking cat or dog.

I won't pass judgment on someone who may or may not have someone else important in her life than her dog. I know a lot of people like that.

Plus, they are probably not allowing people aside from first responders in at this point.

Great Porn Dragon:Shadow Blasko: Well, hoping by the time the weather gets to the Ohio Valley that the storm gods have tired of whirlydoom, other than that...dealing with frickin' allergies (have not gotten good sleep thanks to, well, the trees essentially having a Tree Orgy and me being rather allergic to tree pollen of just about everything that grows here...remind me WHY I live in the Ohio Valley again? :D)

And yeah, was rather hoping we'd not be having a thread on the Midwest getting rodgered by the sky yet again...:P

I hate to tell you this... But you are about 10 minutes from a TorWatch being issued for your area. (Western KY that is..)

(Listening to the scientific discussion panel from Ohio Valley Weathernet)

Ah, lovely. Ah well, was HOPING for a rather peaceful spring weather season, but not to be I guess...fortunately have the essentials in the basement (head protection, shoes, ham radio HT rig and radio scanner, cell phone with PYKL3Radar, emergency light, battery-powered radio and television, SO, cats, and bourbon).

Bourbon...bourbon is a good subject :D Fortunately for me, the tornado safe haven in my house also happens to be the liquor storage, so one-person tornado party can ensue with a bottle of Eagle Rare. :D (Good stuff, and not terribly expensive around here.)

/and if worse comes to absolute worst, I can grab the cats and hide UNDER the bar

For me, I like my rums... Especially Blackheart rum, (From Kentucky)

(Our "Big bad weather" is supposed to be Wednesday.. but it looks like we might get some action tomorrow afternoon as well.)

AndreMA:ArtosRC: Uchiha_Cycliste: Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards? Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

It really depends on the tornado and the location of the debris. Yes and no. What you can often expect are the spinning winds that keep debris aloft. Does some debris get sucked upwards? Definitely. Is it like a vacuum? Eh....

My understanding is that in the center of a tornado pressures are quite low. This accounts for much of the destruction, particularly with smaller ones: buildings explode from air pressure within. That's why some folks recommend opening windows before heading to shelter.

The whole air pressure causing houses to explode thing is a myth, the physics don't work out. Houses aren't exactly airtight normally and even less so after the windows are blow out by debris. Houses appear to explode because once one wall blows inward the wind forces the other 3 outward. Normal stick framed walls simply can't take the load from the wind.

Fark It:Uchiha_Cycliste: bkosh84: Shadow Blasko: sethstorm: Tornadoes: None in my neck of the woods, since they all seem to go to the east or south.

Please tell me where in SW Ohio you are where you have not had a tornado within 10 miles?

Wasn't there a tornado in Xenia or whatever back in the 1920's or 1930's that was the deadliest in history,?

I thought it was called the tri-state tornado or something.

That was almost certainly not one tornado, but rather a big supercell that spawned multiple tornadoes along one path.

...actually, as scary as it may seem, there IS a consensus building among meteorologists that this was in fact genuinely an incredibly long-tracked tornado and not a tornado family (for some time, it WAS thought the "Tri-State Tornado" was in fact a tornado family from a cycling supercell, but in the past few years folks have gone back over the data and determined that it really was pretty much the Tornado That Would Not Die after all).

AllShelleyAllTheTime:Sorry to be a bother but can someone update me on the kids at the school. I'm not a praying person but I'd like to shout one out for those kids.

According to www.kfor.com in Oklahoma City, Plaza Towers Elementary School has switched from search and rescue (where they expect to find survivors) to search and recovery (where the chances are that they will not find survivors)

Di Atribe:muck4doo: We could build the Himalayas around tornado alley. Or maybe put giant springs underneath the earth in earthquake zones. We may have Google and SmartPhones, that doesn't mean we can beat nature all the time. Nature doesn't care about your technology. Still, I like that people are still trying.

Well, sure. I would just really prefer that we move in the direction of plausible solutions instead of "why would anyone build a school in tornado alley without a basement?" It's so.... accusatory. You know? Like "how could anyone be so stupid" instead of "I bet I know a way that might help." If that makes any sense.

Well, you know, we're Southerners, so of course because we live in red flyover states we're all idiots. Or at least that's the attitude I've seen today, and it's pissed me off a good bit.

ummhima2:FYI most of the small towns and rural areas in Oklahoma rely on on tornado spotters People who literally have to go out in the storm at various points around town and watch for tornado or funnel cloud that is where the nws gets its info that a "tornado is on the ground" or there is a "descending funnel" the only thing nws can do is look at radar and see where the conditions are right wind speed and direction forming a hook, bow, or circular echo

If a tornado is doppler indicated you wait till it's confirmed on the ground?/WTF man

Jim Cantore is talking about how a tornado is basically like putting a house in a blender, and I keep thinking "Will it blend?" Because I'm a terrible person who spends way too much time on the intarwebz.

That is fiction. You do not open your windows. For that to have any effect, you would have to take a direct hit and of course, by that point, debris will be "opening" your windows for you. The last thing people need to be doing is going around opening their windows instead of getting to a shelter.

Again, cracking your windows will not prevent your house from exploding in the event of a tornado.

punk.canuck:That said, you don't need to build a shelter below ground level, you can cover buildings with dirt, or into the side of man made hills.that should take care of flying debris and flooding issues.

Alternatively go with foot thick reinforced concrete walls and roofs. even throwing a couple dozen cars at speed at the same location at a wall like that shouldn't be a problem as a properly designed building should have appropriate buffer areas that are sacrificial before damage reaches shelter areas.

So far I haven't seen any reason why the above won't work beyond, it will add cost. Are there engineering difficulty's absolutely, insurmountable difficulties, or particularly new or difficult problems? No. engineers aren't trying to solve fusion here.

Schools built in the early days of cinder block constructions used double thick walls that were mortar filled for some areas of the halls. That was mostly discontinued after duck-and-cover wasn't going to work anymore.

A bit of drain pipe big enough to craw in makes a very good shelter up to about an F3. Above that, it can become a very good projectile unless you can make sure it is attached to the ground. With F5 tornados, you get enough rain that you needs some very good drainage which makes holes a problem. Much of Oklahoma is covered with red clay so if you dig a hole, it will fill up with water and snakes.

punk.canuck:That said, you don't need to build a shelter below ground level, you can cover buildings with dirt, or into the side of man made hills.that should take care of flying debris and flooding issues.

Fair Enough

Alternatively go with foot thick reinforced concrete walls and roofs. even throwing a couple dozen cars at speed at the same location at a wall like that shouldn't be a problem as a properly designed building should have appropriate buffer areas that are sacrificial before damage reaches shelter areas.

So far I haven't seen any reason why the above won't work beyond, it will add cost. Are there engineering difficulty's absolutely, insurmountable difficulties, or particularly new or difficult problems? No. engineers aren't trying to solve fusion here.

So the question, from a strictly monetary view is, How much tax would those children have paid in their lives. Would that have paid for a reinforced school? That i can't answer.

You're right. There is absolutely no excuse for elementary schools in "Tornado Alley" to not have tornado shelters. If they can't dig, a concrete block house on the surface with earth piled on all sides would work. Those sorts of above ground shelters could be mostly prefabricated and trucked to a site.

The ONLY reason these schools didn't have tornado shelters is because of the cheap motherfarker city and town councilors. Elected officials, many of whom probably send their precious ones to private schools anyway, decided it wasn't worth the money.

What other reason could there be?

The elected officials should be strung up over this. This is why we need regulations. Oklahoma should mandate tornado shelters for all schools.

Aquapope:Uchiha_Cycliste: 8th in population, 9th in pop. density. 94th in area and 44 in GDP. I can see how that adds up to disasters

Right, which makes comparing Bangladesh to anything specious. Substandard everything and too many people stressing that everything. People gonna die, and people are pretty much an inexhaustible commodity, so you can't compare it to... pretty much anywhere except India and China.

I don't think that's fair. The question is consequences of tornadoes. There is no reason to discount an area because of it's position on the socio-economic totem pole. If anything it gives us a benchmark for how much good our structures and warning system are really doing.

basemetal:DesktopHippie: At least it looks like some people were safe even right in the path of this thing.

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Gotta get up for work in a few hours. Calling it a night. Stay safe and be well, Oklahoma farkers.

That reminds me. All of you youngins, I know you love your flip flops and sandals, but for gods sake, when you go to a storm shelter, wear some real shoes, because you don't want to be walking around in that mess wearing stupid flip flops.

Yes, and even with good shoes don't let your kids run around. Also, watch where you are going. A friend got sucked out of his house during the May 3, 1999 tornado and luckily was not injured except for a few scrapes and bruises. His biggest injury was stepping on nail when he was searching the wreckage.

jimmyjackfunk:IronTom: There should be a prize for designing affordable tornado-proof housing.

Definitely THIS. In 2011 after the storm shelter measure failed, our city manager suggested instead of people complaining about trailer parks and apartment needing them that we needed to go out into the neighborhoods meet the residents and find out who had shelters, get to know them and next time severe weather comes go to your new "friends" house. Needless to say he isn't too popular with the folks who live in the nicer homes with shelters having to contend with Jim Bob showing up at their house.

/true all people are not this way but in an emergency are you really going to wait for someone you barely know when there might be more pressing issues at hand?

Stupid thing is we have it. Heck, there was even a test done on nuke-proof construction back in the late 40's during the above ground nuclear tests that spawned as a competition between the construction guys and the engineers. (The construction guys won, as I remember. I can't find a link for a citation but I heard this from a reputable source.)

The problem is, for whatever reason, people don't want to live in homes that look like hobbit holes. And I can't imagine why. They are generally much more efficent to heat and cool and offer some other benefits as well.

Uchiha_Cycliste:IronTom: jimmyjackfunk: IronTom: There should be a prize for designing affordable tornado-proof housing.

Definitely THIS. In 2011 after the storm shelter measure failed, our city manager suggested instead of people complaining about trailer parks and apartment needing them that we needed to go out into the neighborhoods meet the residents and find out who had shelters, get to know them and next time severe weather comes go to your new "friends" house. Needless to say he isn't too popular with the folks who live in the nicer homes with shelters having to contend with Jim Bob showing up at their house.

/true all people are not this way but in an emergency are you really going to wait for someone you barely know when there might be more pressing issues at hand?

You would think that all trailer parks would have a storm shelter. It doesn't have to be deep, people could lay down or sit in it, as it would only be populated for the duration of the storm.

I was reading last night that some trailer parks aren't required to have a shelter; but if they don't they need to advertise that fact. So it's the option between building a shelter or a big sign that says no shelter.

I believe that was my post last night and my trailer park. And yes they installed a sign you can still see the vents from the old cellars that were filled in. The nerve though that after our storm when we complained we were told that a new swimming pool was more important than a shelter because the residents wanted a pool and a shelter was more of a liability than a pool with no lifeguards and teenagers acting as "monitors"

Shadow Blasko:Uchiha_Cycliste: Shadow Blasko: Uchiha_Cycliste: bkosh84: Shadow Blasko: sethstorm: Tornadoes: None in my neck of the woods, since they all seem to go to the east or south.

Please tell me where in SW Ohio you are where you have not had a tornado within 10 miles?

Wasn't there a tornado in Xenia or whatever back in the 1920's or 1930's that was the deadliest in history,?

I thought it was called the tri-state tornado or something.

That one never really got into Ohio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Tornado

I don't know how Ohio got tied into anything. I was just replying that I thought the deadliest tornado (ever) was one called the tri-state tornado.That represents the extent of my knowledge of the tri-state tornado =/

Ok.. I see what happened here.

Sethstorm said that there were no tornadoes in his neck of the woods (But said that he was in SW Ohio)

I was like Wait.. wha?

and posted a link to the Xenia Storm... and Bkosh84 brought up the great Tri-state tornado.

We started in Ohio, then moved to the Tri State tornado, then came back to Ohio.

I got ya. I guess I popped in at the wrong time, or without enough elaboration.

Man On Pink Corner:Uchiha_Cycliste: I can imagine a day when the sky is filled with little solar powered weather drones at various altitudes all over the world and that data is fed into massive computers worldwide resulting in one solid earth weather map. The earth is a closed system. In theory if one were able to measure and correlate all of the forces at work below the edge of space and above the earth, they would have some wicked predicting power. Right?

IronTom:jimmyjackfunk: IronTom: There should be a prize for designing affordable tornado-proof housing.

Definitely THIS. In 2011 after the storm shelter measure failed, our city manager suggested instead of people complaining about trailer parks and apartment needing them that we needed to go out into the neighborhoods meet the residents and find out who had shelters, get to know them and next time severe weather comes go to your new "friends" house. Needless to say he isn't too popular with the folks who live in the nicer homes with shelters having to contend with Jim Bob showing up at their house.

/true all people are not this way but in an emergency are you really going to wait for someone you barely know when there might be more pressing issues at hand?

You would think that all trailer parks would have a storm shelter. It doesn't have to be deep, people could lay down or sit in it, as it would only be populated for the duration of the storm.

I was reading last night that some trailer parks aren't required to have a shelter; but if they don't they need to advertise that fact. So it's the option between building a shelter or a big sign that says no shelter.

IronTom:jimmyjackfunk: IronTom: There should be a prize for designing affordable tornado-proof housing.

Definitely THIS. In 2011 after the storm shelter measure failed, our city manager suggested instead of people complaining about trailer parks and apartment needing them that we needed to go out into the neighborhoods meet the residents and find out who had shelters, get to know them and next time severe weather comes go to your new "friends" house. Needless to say he isn't too popular with the folks who live in the nicer homes with shelters having to contend with Jim Bob showing up at their house.

/true all people are not this way but in an emergency are you really going to wait for someone you barely know when there might be more pressing issues at hand?

You would think that all trailer parks would have a storm shelter. It doesn't have to be deep, people could lay down or sit in it, as it would only be populated for the duration of the storm.

Well the old man who owned the park before we moved in in 2009 (cool no nonsense guy) had four in ground shelters. He paid someone to come in keep them pumped out keep up maintenance, etc. He sold park when his age became a factor. The young asshole who bought it, to save money filled all four in with cement citing that kid would down in them and it was too expensive to pump them out

Uchiha_Cycliste:I can imagine a day when the sky is filled with little solar powered weather drones at various altitudes all over the world and that data is fed into massive computers worldwide resulting in one solid earth weather map. The earth is a closed system. In theory if one were able to measure and correlate all of the forces at work below the edge of space and above the earth, they would have some wicked predicting power. Right?

Aquapope:Uchiha_Cycliste: I'll bet we are doing a hell of a lot better than we were a hundred years ago. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we had yesterday's technology and today's residential density. These super outbreaks are tragic in every way. At least we know that there are people working all over to warn people and minimize damage before hand and save lives after the fact.

Just 40 years ago my dad was City Manager of a town in southern Kansas. We knew a tornado was likely or not... but still when one actually appeared and he had to go to the Emergency Management Center, it usually happened after 11pm and the storm turned from "possible" to "gonna happen" in about 15 minutes. So he got to the EMC just about when the tornado formed, unless he didn't and it came out of nowhere. He told me earlier tonight he would have killed for the heads-up they have today. Moving first responders so well, so quickly, so precisely based on meteorological knowledge and prediction is incredible. If Joplin had happened in '74, triple the deaths.

Yeah, the sirens go off here when there's a tornado a whole 10 miles away... and goddamn meteorologist Katy Horner cuts into my shows cuz weather makes her wet... but it's really just a way of somebody saying "hey, you could die tonight, so pay a little attention."

At least we'll be able to see what another 40 or 50 years brings us technologically. The advance of technology is amazing.

Shadow Blasko:Uchiha_Cycliste: bkosh84: Shadow Blasko: sethstorm: Tornadoes: None in my neck of the woods, since they all seem to go to the east or south.

Please tell me where in SW Ohio you are where you have not had a tornado within 10 miles?

Wasn't there a tornado in Xenia or whatever back in the 1920's or 1930's that was the deadliest in history,?

I thought it was called the tri-state tornado or something.

That one never really got into Ohio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Tornado

I don't know how Ohio got tied into anything. I was just replying that I thought the deadliest tornado (ever) was one called the tri-state tornado.That represents the extent of my knowledge of the tri-state tornado =/

IronTom:There should be a prize for designing affordable tornado-proof housing.

Definitely THIS. In 2011 after the storm shelter measure failed, our city manager suggested instead of people complaining about trailer parks and apartment needing them that we needed to go out into the neighborhoods meet the residents and find out who had shelters, get to know them and next time severe weather comes go to your new "friends" house. Needless to say he isn't too popular with the folks who live in the nicer homes with shelters having to contend with Jim Bob showing up at their house.

/true all people are not this way but in an emergency are you really going to wait for someone you barely know when there might be more pressing issues at hand?

Uchiha_Cycliste:I'll bet we are doing a hell of a lot better than we were a hundred years ago. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we had yesterday's technology and today's residential density. These super outbreaks are tragic in every way. At least we know that there are people working all over to warn people and minimize damage before hand and save lives after the fact.

Just 40 years ago my dad was City Manager of a town in southern Kansas. We knew a tornado was likely or not... but still when one actually appeared and he had to go to the Emergency Management Center, it usually happened after 11pm and the storm turned from "possible" to "gonna happen" in about 15 minutes. So he got to the EMC just about when the tornado formed, unless he didn't and it came out of nowhere. He told me earlier tonight he would have killed for the heads-up they have today. Moving first responders so well, so quickly, so precisely based on meteorological knowledge and prediction is incredible. If Joplin had happened in '74, triple the deaths.

Yeah, the sirens go off here when there's a tornado a whole 10 miles away... and goddamn meteorologist Katy Horner cuts into my shows cuz weather makes her wet... but it's really just a way of somebody saying "hey, you could die tonight, so pay a little attention."

MisterLoki:Theory Of Null: Here is someone climbing out of a shelter and filming the aftermath.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCbhnPfEvF8

Holy shiat. That is one chill dude.

Probably in shock. He probably expected to actually see things still standing when he came out. Imagine going down in your shelter with everything normal and coming back up from your shelter to see that. You'd be in shock too.

Uchiha_Cycliste:It's great how science marches on. It makes me wish I could still be around hundreds of years from now when we have (practically) infinite computing power for our weather models. Will we be able to model and predict exactly when and where tornadoes will strike down? Will we have totally weather proof housing? The future is going to be amazing.

I don't think it will ever be perfect unless there's some sort of time travel. I mean so many chaotic variablesBut to have these things down to a cone of probability and really a thunderstorm warning on days like this should be understood as a tornado may form and they have cones of probability for those./And really the warning time has increased so much, it's amazing.

Charities -Do the normal Red Cross, Salvation Army, any local ones is great.

Please. if possible - Flip a few $ to the local animal shelters. ( I have no links to them)They will need help too. More than they can handle.The critters need some Love too.

Another Farker asked way up from this - Can a Tornado eat up the road? Or something of the kind.Yes they can.They can consume the road. Even your house concret slab. Depends on the Tornados feedings.They are the shop vac of the Gods.

For Fark - Yes, I have to do a "nasty". This is Fark.

OOOOk-lahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain ... OMG WTF!!!Sorry. As said, this is Fark.

FunkOut:Aquapope: Uchiha_Cycliste: Yesterday Great Porn Dragonwas saying "(Bangladesh, in case you're curious, is about the only place in the world that has the level of tornadogenesis that exists in the Tornado Alleys in the US.just do not exist in Bangladesh) and at least one tornado has caused over 1300 deaths as recently as 1989. If the Jarrell tornado had hit in Dallas, it'deasily dwarf that death toll, sadly.)"

Yeah, but "death toll" isn't a good measure of severity when Bangladesh is involved. Somebody slams a door hard and a building falls over. It rains mud every day and they have poisonous snakes like America has squirrels. Their water treatment plants are also their sewage treatment plants, and the direction of flow to and from varies arbitrarily.

Their natural groundwater is also heavily saturated with arsenic in many areas. They achieved independence from India but to me often seems like India just went "You cost too much and have too many problems, go away." And flooding is often and extreme.

8th in population, 9th in pop. density. 94th in area and 44 in GDP. I can see how that adds up to disasters

Eh I'm not very convinced. Basements are already pretty common (not everywhere in the country, but the areas where they aren't common have good reasons for that), so it's not like significant excavations are currently a specialty item.

I don't know if there is truth to this but I was told the reason you don't see too many basements in Oklahoma unless it is in a building designed for something major is because the ground shifts too much (not necessarily earthquakes but the consistency of the soil) now I have seen plenty of the in ground shelters either the ground zero variety or the ones that most of the oil rigs use now that basically look like a concrete box with a door and exhaust vent and when the rigs are set up a hole its dug they are set in and filled in up to the door leaving only the vent exposed. Supposedly after the bad one a few years back couple of rig hands were killed when there was nowhere to go the oil companies mandated these be installed. What seems wasteful is a company man told me when they are done drilling they take a bulldozer and collapse them in because they don't want to dig then out. Guess cozy of concrete is cheaper than the labor involved in digging them out and moving them

Aigoo:After having spent part of my afternoon in a laundry cupboard, I'm one very thankful farkette right now. That massive tornado dissipated less than a mile from my house. I literally cannot remember ever being more thankful for anything in my life.

/gutted seeing Moore//more thankful that my friends in Moore are miraculously unharmed--their house is one of five in their development still standing

punk.canuck:as someone who was in a city that got hit by a major tornado, I understand what a tragedy this is.

But why is the death toll so high? does nobody have basements? were schools actually built in a tornado zone without appropriate survival plans?

I don't understand, a few whackos go out and shoot up schools, and all of a sudden teachers need to be armed, and police need to be stationed in schools, people talk about changing firearm laws on a national level, some even question your contitution.

But a few tornado's kill apparently what is upwards of 20 kids, and the response is: It's too expensive.

Tornado shelters are trivial, dig a hole, put in some supports and roof and cover it in dirt. hell put a baseball diamond or soccer field on top of it. it doesn't even need to be wasted space, put in appropriate lights and put a bunch of classrooms in it.

Vodka Zombie:tinfoil-hat maggie: Uchiha_Cycliste: I'll bet we are doing a hell of a lot better than we were a hundred years ago. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we had yesterday's technology and today's residential density. These super outbreaks are tragic in every way. At least we know that there are people working all over to warn people and minimize damage before hand and save lives after the fact.

\and I'm not schooling you, I just happened to remember that post.

Ya, now we all make fun of that tornado movie but something (non-hollywood) like that did happen and every year the prediction and such get's better.Hell a meteorologist in my town came up with Baron Services which made a huge difference in forecasting.

Yeah. I remember growing up, and we'd have what? Three minutes, tops?

And if the tornado came at night?

Screwed.

I'm glad things have gotten better, but we've still got a ways to go, and I don't think we'll ever be able to predict the exact path, unfortunately.

It's great how science marches on. It makes me wish I could still be around hundreds of years from now when we have (practically) infinite computing power for our weather models. Will we be able to model and predict exactly when and where tornadoes will strike down? Will we have totally weather proof housing? The future is going to be amazing.

Aquapope:Uchiha_Cycliste: Yesterday Great Porn Dragonwas saying "(Bangladesh, in case you're curious, is about the only place in the world that has the level of tornadogenesis that exists in the Tornado Alleys in the US.just do not exist in Bangladesh) and at least one tornado has caused over 1300 deaths as recently as 1989. If the Jarrell tornado had hit in Dallas, it'deasily dwarf that death toll, sadly.)"

Yeah, but "death toll" isn't a good measure of severity when Bangladesh is involved. Somebody slams a door hard and a building falls over. It rains mud every day and they have poisonous snakes like America has squirrels. Their water treatment plants are also their sewage treatment plants, and the direction of flow to and from varies arbitrarily.

Their natural groundwater is also heavily saturated with arsenic in many areas. They achieved independence from India but to me often seems like India just went "You cost too much and have too many problems, go away." And flooding is often and extreme.

I_C_Weener:Yeah. My recollection was that tornadoes were something new to the Europeans immigrating to the US.

At the risk of boring everybody with something I posted in yesterday's tornado thread... A London grad student at KU arrived in Lawrence, KS, just 4 days before a tornado knocked around an apartment complex and some houses on the southwest edge of town. All of us locals (at the pub, of course) just ran outside and looked at the funky sky. London-girl curled up under a table and cried. All she knew about Kansas was that tornadoes kill everybody.

Eh I'm not very convinced. Basements are already pretty common (not everywhere in the country, but the areas where they aren't common have good reasons for that), so it's not like significant excavations are currently a specialty item.

Aigoo:After having spent part of my afternoon in a laundry cupboard, I'm one very thankful farkette right now. That massive tornado dissipated less than a mile from my house. I literally cannot remember ever being more thankful for anything in my life.

/gutted seeing Moore//more thankful that my friends in Moore are miraculously unharmed--their house is one of five in their development still standing

University of Oklahoma doing the right thing. All the students in dorms gone home for the year. They have lots of empty rooms. They are estimating over 10,000 people have no place to call home. Bet that number is larger.

Uchiha_Cycliste:I'll bet we are doing a hell of a lot better than we were a hundred years ago. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we had yesterday's technology and today's residential density. These super outbreaks are tragic in every way. At least we know that there are people working all over to warn people and minimize damage before hand and save lives after the fact.

\and I'm not schooling you, I just happened to remember that post.

Ya, now we all make fun of that tornado movie but something (non-hollywood) like that did happen and every year the prediction and such get's better.Hell a meteorologist in my town came up with Baron Services which made a huge difference in forecasting.

Aigoo:After having spent part of my afternoon in a laundry cupboard, I'm one very thankful farkette right now. That massive tornado dissipated less than a mile from my house. I literally cannot remember ever being more thankful for anything in my life.

/gutted seeing Moore//more thankful that my friends in Moore are miraculously unharmed--their house is one of five in their development still standing

After having spent part of my afternoon in a laundry cupboard, I'm one very thankful farkette right now. That massive tornado dissipated less than a mile from my house. I literally cannot remember ever being more thankful for anything in my life.

/gutted seeing Moore//more thankful that my friends in Moore are miraculously unharmed--their house is one of five in their development still standing

tinfoil-hat maggie:Uchiha_Cycliste: I_C_Weener: I_C_Weener: Aquapope: I heard years ago that something like 95% of tornadoes IN THE WORLD happen in the US, and most of those happen in the lower plains states and along the gulf coast. Is that true? I know the plains are perfectly configured for it - nothing to stop cooler air from the north, nothing to stop moist air from the gulf, etc. But we can't be the only perfect tornado breeding ground in the world, can we?

Meteorology nerds help a Kansan out here.

[www.boston.com image 450x250]

And yes. The US is more prone to it because:

[www.boston.com image 400x173]

"In terms of absolute tornado counts, the United States leads the list, with an average of over 1,000 tornadoes recorded each year. A distant second is Canada, with around 100 per year. Other locations that experience frequent tornado occurrences include northern Europe, western Asia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa and Argentina. In fact, the United Kingdom has more tornadoes, relative to its land area, than any other country. Fortunately, most UK tornadoes are relatively weak. "

Yesterday Great Porn Dragonwas saying "(Bangladesh, in case you're curious, is about the only place in the world that has the level of tornadogenesis that exists in the Tornado Alleys in the US.just do not exist in Bangladesh) and at least one tornado has caused over 1300 deaths as recently as 1989. If the Jarrell tornado had hit in Dallas, it'deasily dwarf that death toll, sadly.)"

Damn, well okay now you're schooling me, I did not know that but 30+ years ago with less than five minutes warning this would have been far worse. The US has a very good warning system. Unfortunately with storms this size it doesn't save everyone.

I'll bet we are doing a hell of a lot better than we were a hundred years ago. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we had yesterday's technology and today's residential density. These super outbreaks are tragic in every way. At least we know that there are people working all over to warn people and minimize damage before hand and save lives after the fact.

DO NOT WANT Poster Girl:Tom_Slick: SuperNinjaToad: Can some farker overlay maps of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquake, volcano etc and tell me where the safest city to live in to avoid natural disasters already?

Bunny Deville:Di Atribe: Great Porn Dragon: It's my understanding that the thing hit during rush hour/what would normally be later elementary school dismissals, and what happened in the school was basically a horrible fluke. :(

Tornado was on the ground from about 3:00-3:30. That's right about when schools let out.

If we're under a warning here, they'll hold the kids in school until it passes. Car riders can go if they want, but walkers and bus riders have to stay in until the warning is over.

Schools in the area announced at 2pmCT that they would not be releasing anyone until after all tornado warnings had passed. So they all were still in the schools.

Uchiha_Cycliste:I_C_Weener: I_C_Weener: Aquapope: I heard years ago that something like 95% of tornadoes IN THE WORLD happen in the US, and most of those happen in the lower plains states and along the gulf coast. Is that true? I know the plains are perfectly configured for it - nothing to stop cooler air from the north, nothing to stop moist air from the gulf, etc. But we can't be the only perfect tornado breeding ground in the world, can we?

Meteorology nerds help a Kansan out here.

[www.boston.com image 450x250]

And yes. The US is more prone to it because:

[www.boston.com image 400x173]

"In terms of absolute tornado counts, the United States leads the list, with an average of over 1,000 tornadoes recorded each year. A distant second is Canada, with around 100 per year. Other locations that experience frequent tornado occurrences include northern Europe, western Asia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa and Argentina. In fact, the United Kingdom has more tornadoes, relative to its land area, than any other country. Fortunately, most UK tornadoes are relatively weak. "

Yesterday Great Porn Dragonwas saying "(Bangladesh, in case you're curious, is about the only place in the world that has the level of tornadogenesis that exists in the Tornado Alleys in the US.just do not exist in Bangladesh) and at least one tornado has caused over 1300 deaths as recently as 1989. If the Jarrell tornado had hit in Dallas, it'deasily dwarf that death toll, sadly.)"

Damn, well okay now you're schooling me, I did not know that but 30+ years ago with less than five minutes warning this would have been far worse. The US has a very good warning system. Unfortunately with storms this size it doesn't save everyone.

Di Atribe:Great Porn Dragon: It's my understanding that the thing hit during rush hour/what would normally be later elementary school dismissals, and what happened in the school was basically a horrible fluke. :(

Tornado was on the ground from about 3:00-3:30. That's right about when schools let out.

If we're under a warning here, they'll hold the kids in school until it passes. Car riders can go if they want, but walkers and bus riders have to stay in until the warning is over.

Great Porn Dragon:It's my understanding that the thing hit during rush hour/what would normally be later elementary school dismissals, and what happened in the school was basically a horrible fluke. :(

Tornado was on the ground from about 3:00-3:30. That's right about when schools let out.

I_C_Weener:I_C_Weener: Aquapope: I heard years ago that something like 95% of tornadoes IN THE WORLD happen in the US, and most of those happen in the lower plains states and along the gulf coast. Is that true? I know the plains are perfectly configured for it - nothing to stop cooler air from the north, nothing to stop moist air from the gulf, etc. But we can't be the only perfect tornado breeding ground in the world, can we?

Meteorology nerds help a Kansan out here.

[www.boston.com image 450x250]

And yes. The US is more prone to it because:

[www.boston.com image 400x173]

"In terms of absolute tornado counts, the United States leads the list, with an average of over 1,000 tornadoes recorded each year. A distant second is Canada, with around 100 per year. Other locations that experience frequent tornado occurrences include northern Europe, western Asia, Bangladesh, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, South Africa and Argentina. In fact, the United Kingdom has more tornadoes, relative to its land area, than any other country. Fortunately, most UK tornadoes are relatively weak. "

Yesterday Great Porn Dragonwas saying "(Bangladesh, in case you're curious, is about the only place in the world that has the level of tornadogenesis that exists in the Tornado Alleys in the US.just do not exist in Bangladesh) and at least one tornado has caused over 1300 deaths as recently as 1989. If the Jarrell tornado had hit in Dallas, it'deasily dwarf that death toll, sadly.)"

punk.canuck:Tornado shelters are trivial, dig a hole, put in some supports and roof and cover it in dirt. hell put a baseball diamond or soccer field on top of it. it doesn't even need to be wasted space, put in appropriate lights and put a bunch of classrooms in it

It's been said over and over that a shelter isn't necessarily trivial. Depending on the ground water and what the ground is made of. Some places it will flood. Some places have huge, huge boulders in the ground. You can't assume a basement can be built everywhere.

Mrtraveler01:artemusprine: OK, I get it. People who don't believe in God think prayer is a waste of time. It is utterly stupid to hope that people are found alive and well, are reunited with loved ones, and taken care of because hoping changes nothing according to a purely rational worldview. And why be thankful that you barely survived a massive calamity if there is no God to thank (and if even if there were you can't know that you aren't on his to-do list for the next tornado)? In the absence of compelling evidence for or against God, a willingness to believe has to be rooted in optimism. I'll take that optimism over "don't waste your time praying" and "don't embarrass us both by thanking your made-up God" any day.

I'm a Christian but I see their point in thinking it's stupid when someone is saying thank god they're alive while just a few blocks a way, a bunch of children drowned in a bathroom destroyed by a tornado.

I don't care if people are saying 'God saved me' and they are complete idiots or completely correct. I just want people to survive this.

as someone who was in a city that got hit by a major tornado, I understand what a tragedy this is.

But why is the death toll so high? does nobody have basements? were schools actually built in a tornado zone without appropriate survival plans?

I don't understand, a few whackos go out and shoot up schools, and all of a sudden teachers need to be armed, and police need to be stationed in schools, people talk about changing firearm laws on a national level, some even question your contitution.

But a few tornado's kill apparently what is upwards of 20 kids, and the response is: It's too expensive.

Tornado shelters are trivial, dig a hole, put in some supports and roof and cover it in dirt. hell put a baseball diamond or soccer field on top of it. it doesn't even need to be wasted space, put in appropriate lights and put a bunch of classrooms in it.

So I put the KOTV live feed over my Facebook Farmville game, and it's like the news commentators are playing Farmville with me. Awesome. Although I'm a little disturbed that they are talking about all my livestock are dead and my neighbors homeless.

Befuddled:Do the K-12 schools in tornado country have shelters for the kids? I would think it would be required but I could see the people there not wanting to pay for it.

No structure except for hardened military bunkers and possibly underground shelters can withstand an EF-5.

EF5 (T10+) damage represents the upper limit of tornado power, and destruction is almost always total. An EF5 tornado pulls well-built homes off their foundations and into the air before shredding them, flinging the wreckage for miles and sweeping the foundation clean. Very little recognizable structural debris is generated by EF5 damage, with most materials reduced to a coarse mix of small, granular particles and dispersed evenly across the tornado's damage path. Large, multi-ton steel frame vehicles and farm equipment are often mangled beyond recognition and deposited miles away or reduced entirely to unrecognizable component parts. The official description of this damage highlights the extreme nature of the destruction, noting that "incredible phenomena will occur"; historically, this has included such awesome displays of power astwisting skyscrapers, levelling entire communities, and stripping asphalt from roadbeds. Despite their relative rarity, the damage caused by EF5 tornadoes represents a disproportionately extreme hazard to life and limb- since 1950 in the United States, only 58 tornadoes (0.1% of all reports) have been designated F5 or EF5, and yet these have been responsible for more than 1300 deaths and 14,000 injuries (21.5% and 13.6%, respectively).

Befuddled:Do the K-12 schools in tornado country have shelters for the kids? I would think it would be required but I could see the people there not wanting to pay for it.

An underground shelter for 200 people or more would be incredibly expensive to build. Plus, after 5 years of no serious threats, it would just get filled up with old float chicken wire or tackling dummies or whatever. Not to be hearless, but 99% of schools in the Midwest are never going to have a tornado come within 5 miles of them. You can't engineer away every possible tragedy.

Theory Of Null:Linkster: <b><a href="http://www.fark.com/comments/7759176/84328912#c84328912" target="_blank">wxboy</a>:</b> <i>If parents can deal with snow days, they can deal with tornado days. Of course some can't, but that's true everywhere.</i>

So you have about 30 minutes from Tornado watch to tornado warning, if at all. Then maybe a touchdown in that big ass box, if at all. It's not THIS WILL HAPPEN!! They don't know.

when I was Kansas last time. I just sat there and watched the radar, no where to go, no place to hide, today's a good day to die!

And a lot of people don't watch the news during the day. Even if they heard the sirens they might just think it's a regular thunder storm or another test. If anything, they need a more unique way to warn people.

It's gotten better, when I was a kid the twister would have dissipated about the time the sirens go off.

Trust me, Tornado sirens are what they are, no one in that area blows sirens for a pussy ass thunderstorm.

Begoggle:skozlaw: QueenMamaBee: Not reading all the way back,but I just got a text on how to send help, even if you choose not to use the Red Cross, text FOOD to 32333 for $10 to the Oklahoma City food bank, text STORM to 80888 for $10 to the Salvation Army. Sending my $10 to the food bank

Which is fine, but people should also need be dissuaded from using the Red Cross. If you really believe the derp about them, fine, send to one of the other places, but don't just not donate because one dickhead said stupid things about them on TV.

The best option is to directly give the things that are needed to those who need them, but obviously this isn't possible for everyone.I don't like the way Red Cross or a lot of big charities operate, but they are the best option for now.

Again, I highly recommend Mennonite Disaster Services, http://www.mds.mennonite.net/. Those people are amazing, and they really impressed me after the Alabama tornadoes two years ago.

Radioactive Ass:Uchiha_Cycliste: Wow. So a plane would have to be really, REALLY high up. Not something for a commercial airliner.

Other than storm chasing planes no pilot in their right mind will go anywhere near a thunderstorm on purpose. They will even go a hundred+ miles out of the way to avoid it if they have to. Not only because of the winds (which can drop an airplane thousands of feet in a few seconds in they hit a down draft) (what goes up must come down you know) but also because there's hail in there a lot of the time and that can bring it down in some conditions.

So these storms are just massive volumes of danger, chaos and instability whose reach far extends their visible appearance.

Uchiha_Cycliste:RatOmeter: Uchiha_Cycliste: Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

The center sucks, mostly because it's part of the structure that's making the horribly destructive winds that are rotating around it. Those are the part that cause the destruction.

Thanks, and do you know if it always sucks, or only sometimes (in some tornadoes). Or does it always suck but sometimes not as strongly?

Yes, it SUCKS. It's a Nature-damned vortex. Have you never drained a sink or tub and watched it?

The difference is that it's the rotating winds - no, save that. It's that it's a difference in pressure. In tornadoes it happens that the forces are somewhat inverted, with respect to a kitchen sink. The physics are the same^W^W similar. Awww, fark it. The physics are the same, it's just a matter of scale and what forces are in action.

One of the reasons I bought my house was due to it being built with a fallout shelter. Built in 1958. The house inspector who went through was amazed with the steel beams holding up the concrete that was the base for the garage. I figured that anyone building a house like that, there would be less issues over the years with construction quality.

Professor Farksworth:LessO2: Now That's What I Call a Taco!: A several ton oil tank flew at least a half mile. Expert from the Weather Channel says that proves this was an F5.

I'll wait until the Weather Service declares it as such. Hard to believe a source that is consistently trying to drum up shait and naming winter storms.

If it was Forbes who said it, you can believe it. He studied under Dr. Fujita who invented the original scale and was part of the panel that created the new scale. He knows his shiat.

NWS won't say it until they can get people in on the ground to confirm it for themselves, and that probably won't be until tomorrow. Probably the EF4 estimate from them right now is just from the media shots they've seen. They were probably still working on surveying yesterday's tornadoes this morning.

olddinosaur:I got out of Wichita Falls in 1974. The big tornado hit in 1978, and was probably worse than the Moore tornado.

It was 1979 & I was in that one, too. You're an old dinosaur though, so I'll let it slide. 42 died in that one, I believe.

Uchiha_Cycliste:That is pretty incredibly complicated.I'll bet it was a big day for meteorologists when they were able to start collecting this data and start making sense of tornadoes. It looks like there is so much more going on than just what you see on (from) the ground.

That's actually a pretty simplistic graphic. Tornadic storms are like huge machines, churning hot & cold air up and down, left & right like a conveyor belt. I'm looking for a better graphic. I just figured that was a good one to get you started.

Weather balloons & radar were the two BIG advances in learning how tornadoes work.

From the article....First responders told KFOR-TV's Lance West they don't believe there are anymore survivors in the Plaza Towers Elementary school.

So far the bodies of seven children have been recovered.

Crews said they believe 20 to 30 more children may be inside but again, do not believe there are anymore survivors.

Let that sink in for a minute. I harp on our school system here in Northern Va for hitting the goddamn panic button. No more. Never. Ever.I can't even find the right words right now.I yelled at my daughter earlier for something rather innocuous. We're heading downstairs for some ice cream.

Like I said earlier, I spent the morning at my daughter's elementary school hanging out with the fourth graders at their party and awards ceremony. Then I came home to hear this. When I heard about the confirmed bodies at plaza towers, I literally started crying while I was at publix picking up my son's prescription.

I started welling up when I was talking to my daughter about 20 minutes ago.

Look back at the party and awards and focus on that. My daughter graduates 4th grade in less than 3 weeks and you better believe my wife and I will be there to celebrate.

I'm torn because my wife and are not helicopter parents at all. We watch her do stupid shiat and try to get her to learn from it but goddamnit, shiat like this makes me want to circle our wagons around her.

mr lawson:Uchiha_Cycliste: Thanks you guys for answering my sucky question. It was the first time I'd ever questioned the tornado's vortex and not just taken it's properties for granted.

it does indeed suck upward.It is a VERY low pressure center.The out gassing is near the top of the supercell.That is why you have items found hundred of miles away.some of the lighter stuff gets sucked up tens of thousands of feet into the air.

Wow, so TV/movies/cartoons are sort of a little bit accurate, if exaggerated. Thanks, this is really interesting to learn.

As a small town first responder I have seen some things that have rattled my cage but I pray to Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan that I never find myself in this kind of rescue/recovery situation.

Uchiha_Cycliste:Thanks you guys for answering my sucky question. It was the first time I'd ever questioned the tornado's vortex and not just taken it's properties for granted.

it does indeed suck upward.It is a VERY low pressure center.The out gassing is near the top of the supercell.That is why you have items found hundred of miles away.some of the lighter stuff gets sucked up tens of thousands of feet into the air.

Uchiha_Cycliste:Okay. So if I understand correctly, debris can get sucked way up if the drafts are right but primarily its just fierce spinning winds. In other words cartoons and media have taken some creative liberties with what the middle of a tornado does. Thanks!

Tornados do suck. The wall clouds where they form are a huge low pressure system and that cases an updraft that tends to go from about 3,000 feet up to about 30,000. Hail bounces around in that from the updraft so the vertical winds happen to be high enough to counter gravity for things like grape fruit sized chunks of ice. As those wall clouds get close to the ground, you can get the characteristic funnel and once that forms, the forces in it help reinforce the vertical air flow as cyclone helps drive air away from the low pressure point at the center. The NWS skywarn web site has lots of useful on how they work.

mrshowrules:wxboy: slackerboy: I haven't read the thread, but what we've been talking about here is, why the fark don't schools in a tornado zone have a saferoom? Reinforced concrete, a couple of feet down. ~75 people is what I've seen. It doesn't have to be that big, you can cram them in for the hour or so before help gets there. This country is retarded.

An average elementary school might have 200 or more students, and you can't just shove kids into a crawl space like sardines every time the sirens sound. That would probably cause more problems than it solved. Building something large enough to shelter everyone reasonably could double the cost of building, and in an era when education budgets are already tight, for the low low probability of an event both during school hours and strong enough to render current procedures inadequate.

Better building this then tanks the Pentagon doesn't need. Infrastructure spending would be could for the economy right now. Keeps people employed and it should be separate from the education budget. Plus, you could easily justify this with the frequency of tornadoes in certain areas.

Forecasting now is at a point where schools could reasonably institute a no-school-today policy when these types of things are possible. It's already been pointed out that this outbreak was predicted several days in advance. Cancelling school a few days a year and making them up later would be way more cost-effective than building and retrofitting school buildings with storm shelters.

OK, I get it. People who don't believe in God think prayer is a waste of time. It is utterly stupid to hope that people are found alive and well, are reunited with loved ones, and taken care of because hoping changes nothing according to a purely rational worldview. And why be thankful that you barely survived a massive calamity if there is no God to thank (and if even if there were you can't know that you aren't on his to-do list for the next tornado)? In the absence of compelling evidence for or against God, a willingness to believe has to be rooted in optimism. I'll take that optimism over "don't waste your time praying" and "don't embarrass us both by thanking your made-up God" any day.

schief2:I was in the damage path in Joplin an hour or so after the tornado went through there. What I'm seeing on TV from the ground and from the air looks uncomfortably similar...entire neighborhoods of houses that are now a pile of boards, not a basement in sight. Cars tossed into piles, wrapped around trees, etc.

Joplin killed 160+ people in a less-populated area (though granted it went right through the middle of the urban area), and it hit on a slow Sunday afternoon, not the middle of a weekday afternoon. It took til the next day before the magnitude of the death toll really became apparent, I fear the same may be the case here.

I was just talking with someone on how lucky the Joplin tornado was in comparison because even though it wiped out the high school, it happened on a Sunday afternoon and everyone was at the graduation ceremony at Missouri Southern University on the other (non-impacted) part of town.

I was in the damage path in Joplin an hour or so after the tornado went through there. What I'm seeing on TV from the ground and from the air looks uncomfortably similar...entire neighborhoods of houses that are now a pile of boards, not a basement in sight. Cars tossed into piles, wrapped around trees, etc.

Joplin killed 160+ people in a less-populated area (though granted it went right through the middle of the urban area), and it hit on a slow Sunday afternoon, not the middle of a weekday afternoon. It took til the next day before the magnitude of the death toll really became apparent, I fear the same may be the case here.

Shadow Blasko:RatOmeter: JolobinSmokin: I'm in Tulsa and over the past 2 days in Mid-town it has hardly rained and barely any wind, I only brought my trash cans, and lawn furniture cushions inside a couple hours ago and still no weather here.

Just like Stillwater the last couple of days. Everything, the bad shiat and the rain, just went south and west.

Old joke. There's a lot of people in Oklahoma City and quite a few people in Norman. But there's Moore people in between.

/a few less tonight.//Damned sad people didn't take extraordinary measures, like cancelling school in the areas that the NWS forecast that the SAME shiat IN THE SAME AREA AS YESTERDAY WOULD LIKELY HAPPEN TODAY!

Norman NWS had a big, bloody map predicting where this stuff would happen published before 11am this morning.

/sobs

Generally they only make plans for that kind of action if the NWS issues a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation) warning. Those are extremely rare, and I do not believe that there was one today.

Also, I know this is not going to be a popular opinion at the moment, but your kids are generally safer in school than they are at home in this case. RARELY are their mass casualty events at schools.

In this case, and in the case of an EF5, it would not matter. School won't protect you, home wont protect you. Unless you are underground you are in deep crap.

Sounds like underground didn't work out so well for some at the school.

/Still the best place//Our "Tornado Room" has a wrecking bar and a hatchet in it for digging/hacking out

ancker:I didn't say anything about praying instead of donating, did I? I just said there's no need to make atheism the point of your posts.

Yea, I just don't see your point in getting pissy about it. Hundreds of thousands of people right now are running around praying or saying you should pray which accomplishes absolutely nothing and you're pissed off because one or two people on Fark made a crack about religion which accomplishes absolutely nothing?

RatOmeter:JolobinSmokin: I'm in Tulsa and over the past 2 days in Mid-town it has hardly rained and barely any wind, I only brought my trash cans, and lawn furniture cushions inside a couple hours ago and still no weather here.

Just like Stillwater the last couple of days. Everything, the bad shiat and the rain, just went south and west.

Old joke. There's a lot of people in Oklahoma City and quite a few people in Norman. But there's Moore people in between.

/a few less tonight.//Damned sad people didn't take extraordinary measures, like cancelling school in the areas that the NWS forecast that the SAME shiat IN THE SAME AREA AS YESTERDAY WOULD LIKELY HAPPEN TODAY!

Norman NWS had a big, bloody map predicting where this stuff would happen published before 11am this morning.

/sobs

Generally they only make plans for that kind of action if the NWS issues a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation) warning. Those are extremely rare, and I do not believe that there was one today.

Also, I know this is not going to be a popular opinion at the moment, but your kids are generally safer in school than they are at home in this case. RARELY are their mass casualty events at schools.

In this case, and in the case of an EF5, it would not matter. School won't protect you, home wont protect you. Unless you are underground you are in deep crap.

Uchiha_Cycliste:Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

There is a rotating updraft in the center of the storm. The tornado itself isn't necessarily sucking upward, but the entire storm can be. It's this rotating updraft that spawns the tornado in the first place.

Uchiha_Cycliste:Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

Uchiha_Cycliste:Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

I think it's just mostly horizontal wind. There is an intense low pressure in the middle (which drives the winds) but there isn't so much suction for heavier things, the strong wind can just get under some things and toss it upward.

Uchiha_Cycliste:Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

Both really... Winds are horizontal, but there are updrafts and variations in wind speed that create little spinning eddies that throw things everywhere.

Also the difference in wind speed from ground level to just above ground level (faster) creates lift.

But.. mostly just horizontal when you get down to the "what would I feel standing near it"

Can I ask a stupid question?Do tornadoes really have super strong sucking upwards forces like cartoons depict? Or are the winds just really strong spinning winds that sometimes happen to have debris make their way upwards?Does the question make sense? Put another way, is the center of a tornado like a vacuum or just fierce spinning winds?

Torgo_of_Manos:derpy: Anthracite: Torgo_of_Manos: Donate to the Redcross if you can

DO NOT DONATE TO THE RED CROSS....

Havent you heard enough of the crap they DONT DO???

Your money would be better spent by renting an airplane and dropping dollar bills in the general area.

What an appropriate user name

It's actually true. Here in Alabama they where useless for the Tuscaloosa Tornado outbreak.All money to the red-cross goes into their 'general fund' very little of that actually reaches people in need.Better to go on a website and donate to the local chapter of the Salvation Army in OKC---they target the area; and a very streamlined overhead cost.

FatherDale:I'm listening to this farktard on CNN talk about how Jesus saved him and his wife from the tornado, and how the Lord took care of him. I wanted the reporter to ask him "So, those 24 children killed in that elementary school just weren't right with the Lord, eh?"

This. And if his god saved him then his god caused this. No supernatural being causes tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms, earthquakes or any other natural disaster and no supernatural being will save you from them either. It's just dumb luck, not divine intervention.

/Tulsan// hopes for the best for everyone in Moore, Jebus farktards included

As I was SAYING in the other thread, MODERATOR, that one is headed towards Granbury, which was devastated during last week's storms. There's also a tornado warning for Montague County, which also had a tornado touch down last week (EF2). Are we working on some tornado ruts out here or what?

So its your fault?

Hm, it may be. I think I've had my lifetime limit of tornadic experiences so I've developed a weather bubble that deflects all the worst stuff.

In other news, not sure if I should stick with national coverage to keep up with Moore or stay local in case we get a warning. Hm..... I know the answer sounds obvious, but....

Get your ass somewhere safe and stay there young lady. I dont trust these damned tornadoes and dont want you playing fast and loose cuz you think you are tornado proof.

LOL. -- Yeah, I'm calling bullshiat on that one. MSNBC on the other hand...

Actually, as a pretty dedicated MSNBC arugula eater, Fox does alright when there's genuine breaking news going on. I don't know that I'd call them 'best,' but they do bring in a couple less-than-braindead anchors.

As I was SAYING in the other thread, MODERATOR, that one is headed towards Granbury, which was devastated during last week's storms. There's also a tornado warning for Montague County, which also had a tornado touch down last week (EF2). Are we working on some tornado ruts out here or what?

Warthog:Here's the KFOR feed: http://kfor.com/on-air/live-streaming/ I have to say that their coverage has been exemplary for the last several hours. Professional, informative, respectful, and careful to qualify what they know vs. what they've heard in rumors. In other words, the anti-CNN. One of their reporters appears to have personally helped dig out the bodies of four of the victims, and only went on air after the recovery was done.

There is a local weather legend on the CBS affiliate, Gary England. But, over the last couple of years, Mike Morgan, on KFOR has been the goto guy for weather. All the anchors on KFOR are local people that have been on the air for years.

KhamanV:Nothing really confirmed about the kids at the school, but what rumors there are sound hopeful.

They were talking to a woman on the phone earlier who was talking about children being found, and when they asked if the kids are alright, the woman's voice just started shaking and she said 'No, they're not alright".